Activists-in-residence enrich and test universities

Before Wendy Pedersen accepted the role of activist-in-residence at Simon Fraser University’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) in early 2023, she had mixed feelings regarding the “in residence” component. 

CERi’s offices are located in a co-working space in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. A decade ago, Ms. Pedersen advocated unsuccessfully for that very location, an old police station, to be converted to social housing. It was an emotional campaign that involved a friend going on a hunger strike. 

“I had not stepped foot in that spot, had not stepped inside those doors. It felt like a bit of a betrayal,” she says. 

But after she crossed that meaning-laden threshold, Ms. Pedersen appreciated the well-equipped office, complete with a photocopier and meeting rooms, especially after working with almost nothing for 30 years as an activist in the community. “To have access to resources, so that you’re able to support the work, that’s really valuable.” 

Her four-month tenure with SFU involved doing research on the loss of single occupancy units in Vancouver. A month after it ended, the Downtown Eastside SRO Collaborative Society (SRO stands for single room occupancy), which she founded and serves as executive director, was given $11 million by the provincial government and in May 2024, the province passed a law to protect single occupancy tenants from dramatic rent hikes. Ms. Pedersen continues to work with the university without an official role, speaking with students and helping researchers make connections. 

“I’d like to change the relationality framework in the university. Moving the relationship between the university and its public from an exploitative relationship to a relationship of mutuality.”

“I’d like to change the relationality framework in the university. Moving the relationship between the university and its public from an exploitative relationship to a relationship of mutuality.”

“The university benefits immensely from having that knowledge and those networks,” says Am Johal, co-director of CERi. “Activists-in-residence can show us that universities can do a much better job of interfacing with crises that are happening in real time.” 

More Canadian universities are launching activist-in-residence programs to expose students to community-based projects, networks and knowledge and enhance research. The changemakers who take these jobs gain access to university resources and a stipend, but they can feel uneasy around a system that can clash with their causes — including gentrification, fair pay and the right to protest. “The university is a white, western, colonial enterprise. The university is an agent of the status quo,” says Marsha Hinds Myrie, who completely her residency at the University of Guelph in June. She advocates for women’s rights in Barbados and is also an academic. 

That conflict could, in theory, offer an opportunity for a shift in the relationships between schools and communities. But there is a catch: 

money. Few of these residency positions have stable funding and are just as precarious as the activists they bring onto campus. 

Artist- and writer-in-residence programs abound, with a robust history in academia, but activist-in programs are rare, mostly new, and tend to come and go. They have not been studied much, save for a 2022 working paper out of King’s College London in the U.K. which was written after a pilot project it ran from 2019 to 2021. 

The paper analyzed 15 residencies in the U.K. and U.S., and said such endeavours “represent a paradox: what space exists for activists in institutions, which are often seen as (re-) creating and perpetuating hegemonic structures and/or thought of as the epistemic sources and reinforcers of the very ideas which activists aim to disrupt?” It noted that there is limited guidance on how to successfully create programs that are transformative both for the school and the activist. 

Canadian universities have a patchwork history with activist-in-residence programs. Wilfrid Laurier University brought on Alex Tigchelaar, a performance artist and former sex worker, in 2015. (She told University Affairs at the time: “A long time ago when I started doing advocacy, I had an unbridled contempt for academia.”) However, the university did not offer the residency again. “Since that time, social justice initiatives and conversations have evolved and been integrated into many areas of the university,” says Heidi Northwood, provost and vice-president, academic at WLU. 

In 2019, Carleton University’s department of law and legal studies appointed Rehana Hashimi to be its inaugural activist-in-residence, charging the veteran activist — she fought for years for women’s rights in Pakistan and now does this work from Canada — with helping craft a long-term program. The department had participated in Scholars At Risk, which helps displaced academics with short-term positions, and hoped to similarly support international activists. 

The pandemic changed plans and Ms. Hashimi stayed until 2022 — being paid a modest stipend of just over $10,000 a year, plus what she earned from teaching — and no one has filled the position since she left. “It has been very difficult with budget cuts to find the money,” says associate professor Melanie Adrian, who proposed the residency and helps run it. 

At U of G, professors Monique Deveaux and Candace Johnson, co-directors of the Grounded and Engaged Theory Lab, recruited migrant activist Gabriel Allahdua in late 2022. “Instead of having a regular postdoc, I wanted to experiment with a new format,” says Dr. Deveaux, whose research focuses on social injustice. Roughly a year later, they offered the residency again, having Dr. Hinds Myrie share the role with Nneka MacGregor, executive director of the Women’s Centre for Social Justice. 

“We’re activists. We don’t have filters. I’m a big mouth wherever I go.” 

Dr. Deveaux says they’ve funded the program through a variety of means, but are not sure if it will continue in 2025. “We’re kind of in a limbo position now. We’re in a hiring freeze and it doesn’t look good for finding additional funds for next year.” 

SFU’s program is also on pause. CERi itself launched in 2020 and has run its researcher-in-residence program since then, pivoting to welcome artists and activists in 2023, since such visitors can enhance community-based research. Now, Dr. Johal is looking for permanent funding, ideally via an endowment created from a donation. 

The University of the Fraser Valley advertised an activist-in-residence program in 2023, but has offered no information to UA regarding its status. Meanwhile, one of the most stable programs is not exactly a residency: McGill University’s Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism has a fellowship for a human rights professional, using money that was gifted to the institution to reliably pay two or three activists – often those who have been displaced for a variety of reasons – as much as $4,000 a month and work on a project of their choosing. 

Dr. Adrian says activists offer insights on issues from a on-the-ground perspective. “University administrators have to understand that if they talk about globalization and internationalization and this idea that we’re here to open minds, then we have to provide opportunities for students to actually open their minds.” 

At SFU, Dr. Johal sees activists as possessing information professors don’t, especially about underserved groups. “When we’re looking to widen what we consider knowledge, it’s important we look at things in different ways. We can add to the layers of experience that students get when they go out into the world. It prepares them to be more durable, out in that polarized world.” 

At U of G, Mr. Allahdua’s tenure spurred students to advocate and volunteer. He organized an event that brought activists and academics together, and still runs a monthly group to maintain those connections. “[Everyone] benefited so much from the introductions and the connections that he was able to help us forge,” says Dr. Deveaux. He often brought migrant workers to the university and she once had a meaningful conversation on a bench on campus with an injured worker. The two most recent activists-in-residence, meanwhile, have hosted events and educated the university community on gender-based advocacy. 

However, such programs require constant effort from those who run them — often faculty and staff at small departments. The report out of the U.K. called them labour intensive and that’s been the experience of professor Nandini Ramanujam, co-director of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism at McGill. “This is not a transactional arrangement. This is a very administration-heavy program.” Her small team helps fellows with housing and finding care for mental health issues, which are common in activists who’ve faced threats, trauma and displacement. “It’s a labour of love.” 

Hosts put in additional time presenting in budget meetings and courting donors to pay for residencies. While artist-in programs can look to arts councils for money, and King’s College London landed a national grant tied to impact projects, no comparable funding exists in Canada. 

For activists, a residency offers some money. But not much: as Dr. Hinds Myrie notes, her rent is $2,500 while her monthly stipend from Guelph is $3,000. Ms. MacGregor gave her stipend directly to her centre while Ms. Pedersen donated hers to a local family in need. 

It also offers a stable place to land for a time, which is important for displaced activists. “When I came here, I had no luck in finding any work or any recognition,” says Ms. Hashimi. She thinks Canada needs more activist-in-residence programs, to give people like herself somewhere to go that honours their contributions. 

Inside a university, these advocates can gain access to different communities, systems and skills, maybe leading to new employment options, if that’s what they want. 

However, residencies don’t always enhance an activist’s career or cause. “Nothing has changed for me,” says Dr. Hinds Myrie. “I can use the University of Guelph library for free, and I’m grateful for that. But my community gets nothing from this.” She notes she was not granted a job interview for an assistant professor job in critical race studies, even though she’s been teaching courses in that program, has her PhD in political science and did her postdoctoral fellowship at U of G. “I was not good enough to be hired as an assistant professor … but I was hired to be a precariously employed activist-in-residence.” Since then, Dr. Hinds Myrie has taken on a role as educational developer for anti oppressive and inclusive pedagogy at U of G. 

Activists are not always embraced across campus. “There were many parts of the university that were keen to get him on board,” says Dr. Deveaux of Mr. Allahdua. “But it was hard to crack the egg of the agricultural school. There’s some resistance to talking about the exploitation of migrant workers there.” Ms. Hashimi agrees that activists don’t toe the line. “We’re activists. We don’t have filters. I’m a big mouth wherever I go.”  

With greater awareness, there’s potential for such residencies to become more mutually beneficial. “This is one of the ways that SFU can make a connection to the community and bring the community into SFU. Everything is relational,” says Ms. Pedersen. Dr. Hinds Myrie thinks activists could help universities reshape themselves under a more just model. “I’d like to change the relationality framework in the university. Moving the relationship between the university and its public from an exploitative relationship to a relationship of mutuality.” 

With a little more money and a lot more support, such programs could realize their potential for social change inside academia as well as in the community. Says Ms. Hashimi: “The cost-benefit, the knowledge, the skills and experience that activists bring is unimaginable.”